The British and American editions of Vogue have almost identical covers. The joy of sharing resources

This is not two for the price of one. If you are drawn by the two covers and wish to own both, you’d have to buy the two editions. This year, for the September issues of British and American Vogues, the covers are very alike. In fact, they are the same, featuring four of the “supers” of the ’90s—Naomi Campbell, Christy Turlington, Linda Evangelista, and Cindy Crawford; wearing the same clothes on both; and styled by the same styliste, British Vogue’s EIC Edward Enninful, the title’s soon-to-be “global creative and cultural advisor” (it is “almost certain”, as industry chatter goes, that he will take over Anna Wintour when she eventually retires); all seemingly done in the same sitting. Smells like careful cost-cutting. The cover is supposed to be a nod to that of the January 1990 of British Vogue, on which the four women appeared, together with Tatjana Patitz, who died of breast cancer in the beginning of this year. That black-and-white photo, shot by Peter Lindbergh, showed an image of the women so practically themselves (not done-up) that younger readers today may not be able to identify them as the supermodels they were.

That 1990 Vogue cover is now considered “legendary”. Will the current appearing on both sides of the Atlantic be similarly celebrated 30-plus years later? The former worked because it did not look like a typical Vogue cover. The five women were dressed identically, in Giorgio di Sant’Angelo bodysuits and their very own denim jeans. They looked like off-duty models without the feigned seriousness required on a commercial job. Cindy Crawford recalled in Vogue in 2106: “We weren’t photographed with a ton of hair and make-up; we were quite undone.” And Naomi Campbell looked, for a lack of a better word—cute, not the power-mama of a model she has projected herself to be today. And Linda Evangelista was Linda, not post-whatever. The latest Vogue cover of the four of them—shot by the Brazilian lensman Rafael Pavarotti—looks disconcertingly digitally-enhanced with a heavy hand. We could not recognise Christy Turlington until we read her name in Mr Pavarotti’s Instagram post; she looked like she was shot separately and then placed in the underwhelming picture. And the all-black outfits and the lack of joie de vivre—did they just return from a funeral?

Certain images are best left frozen in time. The finest usually are. This is not to say that models of a certain vintage should not come together again and have a shot at jolting our collective memories so that they would not be forgotten as legends. But how many times can the same group of subjects meet (even when Mr Enninful describes it in his Editor’s Page as ”a hallowed moment”) to really make a photograph legendary? Miss Crawford wrote in Vogue: “I remember how hot it was that day in New York; we were on the streets in the Meatpacking District. All of us girls were friendly, though some were closer than others, but it was before cellphones, so when we were together we really talked, not distracted by our messages. Managing five women jostling for position cannot have been easy, but Peter is a dream to work with. He knew how to control us.” It clearly was not hot at the latest shoot, nor spontaneous. There was no jostling either since the composition appears completed during post-production. And they certainly did not look undone. Did Rafael Pavarotti know how to control them? Or was it the increasingly powerful Edward Enninful who called the shots?

Photos: Rafael Pavarotti/Vogue/Condé Nast